Saying Goodbye

Well this past week has been really rough and we have not even gotten to the worst of it yet. Sunday morning Jonathan and I went to church with his mom's family and had to say goodbye to some of the people there. Those people are some of the most caring people you will ever meet. After church we headed down to Winterville to catch the tail end of a family reunion where I had to bid numerous sweet cousins goodbye as well as my 90 year old grandfather. That one was difficult because I sincerely hope and pray that is not the last time I give that great man a hug here on earth.

Monday, Jonathan and I were at the apartment all day cleaning, packing, and trashing. Tuesday we had some help from his grandparents loading things to go to Rena's house. We decided since we were headed that way to meet up with my sister, Josh, and the boys for lunch and a little time to hang out. We met up at Zaxby's and enjoyed lunch before heading back to their house to play with Jack and Sam one last time as a 2 year old and a sweet baby less than a year old. Jack enjoyed running from Umple Jonafin and it made me sad that Jonathan has missed so much of them already. Jonathan just met Sam on Sunday and is already telling him bye. It breaks my heart knowing I have been so priviledged to see these sweet boys grow up and laugh with them and play with them but not I can't. I am going to miss so much of them and that makes me so sad. It was so hard to feel that sweet boy give me a hug and a kiss and know that next time I see him he might have grown out of that. He will be a big 3 year old boy the next time I see him! :( Hugging my sister felt like letting go of a best friend. Ever since the boys have been born and she lived less than an hour away we have grown so much closer as sisters and as best friends. She is an amazing mommy to those boys and a great example. I love her so much and it hurt saying goodbye. I did pretty well until we pulled out of the driveway and waved goodbye from the car, I lost it. I boo hoo'd all the way to his mom's house. Thank you to my sister for making so much time for me this summer and I will forever be thankful!!! I love you so much!
Later Tuesday night Jonathan and I went to dinner with his aunt and uncle and their 3 children. We had a great time laughing and cutting up at dinner. After dinner more tears came as we had to bid them goodbye. Jonathan found it difficult to say bye to Kristina, the oldest of those 3. She is not much younger than Jonathan and they have a close bond. She is such a sweet girl who will be loved and missed.


Well Wednesday was a little bit less tearful. We headed back to the apartment in the morning to wait on the movers to come. They came a little after 12 to begin packing up the things we are taking with us to Germany. In the midst of them packing some others guys showed up to work on the air conditioner, washer, and dryer. Then my dad came to take a few things for us in his truck. Our apartment was pack full of people moving all around and trying to get stuff done. It was crazy there for a little while. Once they were all gone Jonathan's dad, stepmom, and stepsisters came up to hang out for a lil while. The girls loved it because Jonathan and I were giving away stuff left and right. Even Karen took home a few prizes! lol. ;) Thanks girls for taking those off our hands. They helped us clean up a little and get things closer to being ready to go and we enjoyed spending time with them. We will be seeing Tim again but we did have to say goodbye to the girls. I know they will have grown up so much next time we see them. Well Jonathan has yet to meet the friends I made in Hartwell while he was gone. These said friends, mainly Kaitlyn, has been dying to meet him. So we managed to work it out to where we could squeeze in a dinner Wednesday night at our usual Mexican location in Hartwell. Well, Kaitlyn managed to gather so many sweet people to have dinner with us. A lot of my past volleyball players and tennis players showed up to say goodbye and eat and laugh with us. It was such a sweet time that we enjoyed so much. We walked away that night with flowers, candy, cake, frosting on the car, and cream in the face! I will post pictures soon for those of you curious about that!

Well here we are at Thursday, our last whole day here and I got to get out of bed and get going because my mom is on her way here to help us get the last of things! It all seems surreal but I guess we are as ready as we will ever be. Germany here we come!

47

We are indeed in the 40's. This week I am really excited about getting prepped to go to the beach with my family next week. It is rare that our family gets a chance to get together, much less for a vacation. We have not been on vacation as a family since the summer after I graduated high school- long time! ANyhow, it technically won't be the whole family since Jonathan won't be there and I am saddened by that. I am excited that I get to spend the week relaxing and having geniune family time for a whole week at the beach. It is a perfect vacation to have my last summer in Georgia for a while.

This week I am trying to get some major cleaning and packing done. Mama Na, Jonathan's mom, will be dogsitting for my sweet Cash next week so my mom is going to come up on Friday with the Durango to take some more stuff to put in storage at her house. Some more scheduled highlights for this week include another splash zone visit with Laura and the boys, pool time with Melanie, dinner with Bray, and lunch with Emmanuel girls Thursday afternoon, and vet appointment for Cash Friday morning.

Ok so I have been tantalizingly promising you some of the information that I have managed to dig up on Germany.
Here is the website for the elementary school that is on base. There is not a whole lot to it right now since school is not in session but feel free to browse:
http://www.mann-es.eu.dodea.edu/
This is the website for the actual base. Most of the stuff is seemingly boring to normal people but thought you might enjoy it anyhow.
http://home.mannheim.army.mil/
I was trying to put the picture in here of what might be our floor plan but it is not working very well. I will try to put it on facebook.

57

57 days to go, we are almost down to eight weeks!! The time has flown and I could not be more grateful!!

Yesterday, I finally got up the will power to go through some of my teaching supplies that I had to clear out of the classroom and divide into what I know I will take with me and what I know I will leave behind. I still have to go through all my books because I have so many and there are so many that I know I can do without. Well I decided to go ahead and bring the first load of things that Jonathan's mom, Rena, will house in her basement for us. Yay for having family with storage space!!! :) Well I also pulled aside a few books I thought Jack might enjoy and asked Laura if she wanted to keep them for me so that they could enjoy them while I am gone. So I took those over to the their house and hung out with Laura, Jack, and Sam for a while. Then Josh got home and we all went to dinner where Jack made a boot with his chip! Haha. "I made boot!" So after dinner I came over to Rena's house and hung out with the girls. Cash was really hyper and wanted to play with Poohgen, Ashley's pug. He was running all around the living room and I am sure was seeing stars after running straight into the legs of the table a few times!

Right now I am the only one up, watching the US play Slovenia. Right now they are losing- big shocker!! ;) Maybe they will get lucky again but I kind of doubt it! Oh well. Plans for today are just to hang out with family. It is going to be a busy weekend.

Halloween Happiness

Well this week was very crazy. It was Red Ribbon week at school. This is the week where the kids can kind of dress up and there is a focus on staying drug free. Well I didn't particularly appreciate the fact that they did this the week before Halloween. The kids were already hyper. However, the week went by rather quickly. We had a very eventful Friday with testing, Book Character Parade, Cumulative Review, and Witches Brew. Needless to say by the time the kids left Friday I was EXHAUSTED.

Friday after work I drove up to my mother-in-laws house. We had planned on going to the corn maze but mother nature had different ideas because we got rained out. So we stayed in and watched movies.

Saturday morning my sister-in-law and I got up and drove to Hartwell for the Fall Festival at our school. My parents came by ith Jack and he wore his turtle costume. Some of my students were asking if Jack was my baby, well at least they asked instead of assuming. Haha. He looked very cute in his turtle outfit and he got to go fishing, played mini golf, threw the football through the hoops, picked a duck, and won bean bag toss. It was great. After the game playing we were all hungry so we headed to the hot dog hut for some lunch.

After we finished eating we headed back to my apartment to hang out and watch the game. Whil the game was certainly less than thrilling to watch, the company was wonderful. Jack was a lot of fun and had a great time with his new friend Ashley. I fixed tacos for dinner which we ate at half time. All in all great day with family.

Ashley and I watched a scary movie after the parentals and Jack went back to pop and meemaw's house. She was so funny to watch because she had never seen it before. We are going up to Helen today and going to church up there with Rena's family. So I must go get in the shower and get ready.

Jonathan finished third in his board competition on Saturday so pretty good considering he only had a week to study. He plans on going back in December.